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[Wormpurple]

The problem with a forum like this is that it gives an unrealistic perspective on the number of failures. After all, Seagate must sell an incredible number of these things. According to Seagate, the failure rate is not excessively high, but people will typically only report failures, not successes.

So, here's what happened today.

I needed a new drive for backing up my MacBook Pro via Time Machine as my existing 500GB drive was full and I couldn't keep a reasonable number of backup generations.

I was browsing in my local Maplin and noticed that the 1.5TB expansion seemed competitively priced. Especially compared to the equivalent FreeAgent which is nearly 30% more expensive than from Tesco! A quick check using RedLaser from my iPhone confirmed that it really was a competitive price, so I bought one. Why not, I thought. It's good value and I use Seagate disks all the time and they're great.

So, I got my disk and while having a cup of coffee, I started browsing for reviews of this drive. Amazon threw up enough bad reviews. Pretty well every other site I saw had similar horror stories; many more bad reviews than good ones. Curious, I thought. But as I said, people typically write about their bad experiences, so these reviews can't necessarily be considered representative.

When I got home, I attached the drive to my MacBook Pro, reformatted for HPFS, configured Time Machine to use the disk and started a backup.

Now, if Seagate's statistics are to be believed, what's the chances that this disk would turn out to be a 'clicker' with incredibly slow data transfer, freezes and all of the signs of impending death?

1%? After all, Seagate offers a 2 year warranty on the drive, so they must be confident in it.

Let's be generous and say, ooh, 5%.

Guess what? Yep, the drive's a clicker.

So, I have a view of two statistics.

Seagate's official low-percentage-of-drives and my 100% duff-drive experience.

Which one do we think is closer to the truth?

It's going back to Maplin tomorrow and I'm getting my money back. Alternatively, I'll offer them another £15 for the FreeAgent, but I'm not paying the extra £40-odd quid difference between their shelf prices.

Come on Seagate, it's too much of a coincidence that there are so many failures reported. If it was no more susceptible to these problems than other drives, you'd see similar numbers of equivalent posts on the FreeAgent forums, too.

Ask Toyota what happens when you continue to claim that there are no known problems with an inherently faulty design...

[megang]

When will Seagate admit the HUGE reliability problems with these drives?  I desperately need a replacement for the completely unusable Seagate Expansion 1.5TB drive I purchased in December 2009.  It is completely unacceptable to suggest multiple replacements at cost each time to the customer when it is known that Seagate continues to ship just as defective replacements.

Seriously, next stop is Consumerist.

[MrC]

I bought mine in August 2009 which i bought as an emergency for my dying music computer with over 5 years of my work on it,

The day i got it from Amazon, and the first time i turned it on it started making noises. Call me naive but this was my first external and whilst the clicking did sound slightly abnormal, i did not for one second think it was anything too serious, how could it be? I read great reviews on Amazon... I thought maybe the drive was doing these things to "warm up".  

These reviews btw... You may want to WIKI the term "guerilla marketing".

Feel so stupid i didn't look at the bad (or in other words real) reviews

The clicking actually wasn't too disturbing for me in the beginning and i got on with backing up my system (which took forever)

A few weeks later i turn the drive back on and whilst being recognised  by both of my OS's (Vista and XP) i could not access the files, the computer would hang until i pulled the USB out. On more than one occassion it crashed both Vista and XP.

With my blood pressure having gone through the roof at the thought of losing this data i left the drive on my shelf for a few months to give my self some time to grieve. 

A few months passed and whilst still half functioning i thought i would bite the bullet and re-format the entire drive. I have had to do this on two ocassions, most recently I did it last week.

To my amazement it randomly started working perfectly. No clicking noises, transfer was swift and generally how things ought to have been from day one. 5 days in and tens of gigs later i was woken up by the sound of fast clicking noises, louder than i had heard before except this time i also heard knocking. I unplugged everything and rebooted to hear the drive half spin a few times before eventually doing nothing. I can now no longer turn the thing on

For anyone who purchased the Seagate Expansion via Amazon

I purchased mine over 6 months ago. There is no way i was going to pay to deliver (overseas) my broken drive to seagate only to be replaced with a second hand one that would only cause the same troubles.

I just got off the phone to Amazon and without much explaining they have said i can have a full refund. This is 6 months on, they have a policy of 30 days usually, so they must know everyone else are having the same problem.Yet no admission from Seagate

Here's the proof from my account and you will also notice they now offer technical assistance for the product??? Is that because the whole lot are faulty? Why else.

Whats more, because i have confidential data on the drive they have said i can break into the case (voiding my Seagate Warranty which lets face it is useless in a situation like this) which lets me attempt to restore the data myself, Send it back to them and I will still get the full refund.

Amazon certainly know how to deal with customer service in these types of situations, they are in my good books. Seagate on the other hand.....

Havent heard anything from them, don't seem to care about their customers

[mindgamer]

I am also a new owner of 2TB Expansion (ST320005EXD101-RK). I found my way to these forums after I started having problems with the drive as soon as I hooked it to my Windows XP laptop.

I received periodic Clicks and the drive occasionally dissapeared from Windows Explorer. Moments later the drive would be discovered again and I would receive the autorun popup. This meant that while working on my computer, I got the 'disk found autorun' popup every 5-10 minutes or so. This behavior was present only when the drive was idle. While I was copying data to it, there have been no Clicks nor have I witnessed slow transfer speeds yet.

After reading this thread I followed the suggestions of someone who suggested disabling USB Root hub power management - I disallowed windows to turn off devices to save power. Currently I am in the process of filling the disk with 1TB of data.

I will report later on if the USB Root Hub power management trick helped me with the autorun issue. Whatever the case I remain very pessimistic about this drive and wish I had not bought it. I do not want to lose my data. I half wish I DO get the repeating Ticking problem. At least then I would know the drive is broken and I wouldn't use it.. but now it is just a timebomb.

At least I got it from Amazon.. sigh...

[mahzmokz]

yep i had the same exact thing would be watching divx off the hdd and click click lcik and the movie would stall. and now i cant even get the thing going....i recommend back up everything before you become a victim like me of lost friggin date....am not impressed seagate.....

[tec805_x]

Edited for forum rules...

47% of Newegg reviews rated the Seagate Expansion 1.5tb 1 out of 5 (as low as possible).

48% of Newegg reviews rated the Seagate FreeAgent 1.5tb 1 out of 5 also.

36% of Amazon reviewers gave the Expansion series 1 out of 5 (the percentage is lower than it should be because the functional models are lumped in).

121 out of 307 Amazon reviews for the 1.5tb FreeAgent are 1 out of 5 stars, the largest percentage of reviews!

Obviously I personally have had a very bad experience with the 1.5tb Expansion drive. The "Click of Death" set in after copying 1.2tb of media onto this drive. After uselessly searching the internet (including these forums) how to fix the click I placed my hand upon the drive to feel the vibrations of the clicking. When I placed pressure on the drive the clicking went away. I placed a 100 pack of DVD's on top of the drive re-plugged the drive into the computer, allowing me to access the drive once more, quickly moving all my data to other media (yeah, not really "quickly" with USB 2.0, but you get the idea).

Why not just return it to the store? I've had it more than a month. I've only used it for three days (the plastic wrap that protects the shine is still on it) because I was Stupid enough to have purchased the drive when it was on sale well before I was ready to replace the RAID 0 setup that was currently holding all my media. Stupid me #3 (#1 buying the drive without reading reviews about it, #2 not using it right away) was moving my media instead of copying. At least the drive didn't die before all my stuff was gone, just 90%. I was astounded that EasyRecovery Pro couldn't find "moved" files from the old RAID. It found files that were from previous partitions and formats, but nothing that was "moved" (I tried recovery before the handy pressure trick).

Why not just RMA it to Seagate? Read the reviews on Newegg & Amazon - half the people who RMA'd their drive ended up with another "Click of Death" drive. I should pay money to ship back Seagate's defective model so they might send me another? Or maybe it would work for a few months before eating all my stuff? Like I would ever trust this model with my data again? Shiny doorstop? Yes, I know everything is supposed to be backed up (I'm a network administrator for heavens sake!), but should I really have to buy a different manufacturers drive to backup anything that is on the Seagate because I know it's going to die sooner rather then later? Wait, what? Why use it at all if I'm expecting it to die? Yeah, kind of my point. Wow, good rant (okay, maybe just a mediocre rant).

[Per Guidelines: Post Edited] Anyone here have a suggestion? A new drive with free shipping both ways? Not if it's a 1.5tb Expansion or FreeAgent that has failed so many people. The only =>1tb drive I'd take from Seagate right now is the 1tb FreeAgent Go - I've purchased three of those drives and they are a work of beauty (so far).

I'm not a Seagate hater. I have hundreds of computers under my care with probably the majority of them using Seagate hard drives. I've been using Seagate for many years without major blatant problems until now.

This is a disgrace for Seagate and the vendors still pushing these drives. Glad to read Amazon is taking care of their customers, wish I bought mine there.

[p a t r i c k]

Hi tec805_x

Have you tried just talking to the store where you bought it?

In the UK, where I live, there would be 1 year of warranty I think and I am sure that is the case in the US, if that is where you are.

I think if you take it to the store they will give you a refund.

[kuken3]

@wormpurple

About statistics, see my posts earlier in the thread: I swapped my drive 3 times before I got a refund.

3 of 3 drives clicking and freezing....

[tec805_x]

I haven't tried going back to Fry's Electronics, guess I feel stupid for taking it back so long after purchase. Better to feel stupid then be out $110 (if they take it back).

[p a t r i c k]

Hi tec805_x

Yes, do take it back. Don't feel stupid You are simply someone who leads a full life, it took you a while to be able to check it out and now that you have you've found it has a problem.